An interactive simulation and graphical illustration of the speculative framework Information First, in which information is fundamental and space, time, geometry, matter, and gravity are all emergent projections of a timeless informational structure.
The experience is built from the bottom up — exactly as requested — starting from a universe of zero information nodes, then one, two, three, and growing outward until the familiar phenomena of physics appear, each one exactly when the underlying graph becomes rich enough to support it.
The universe is not a process. The universe is a structure.
It is a single, dependency-free static site. Either:
# option A — just open the file
open index.html # (or double-click it)
# option B — serve it (nicer for some browsers)
npx http-server . -p 8080 # then visit http://localhost:8080No build step, no frameworks, no network access required.
A guided, chaptered journey (use ← →, the dots, or space to play/pause), plus a free-play Sandbox (press S) where you build your own informational universe and watch the metrics emerge.
| Chapter | Phenomenon | What emerges, and how it's computed |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | The Void | No states. No information. No concepts. |
| 1 | Identity | One node: existence without distinction. bits = 0. |
| 2 | Distinction | Two nodes → A ≠ B. Information is born. bits = 1. |
| 3 | Adjacency → distance | A—B—C. Informational distance = Σ(1/connectivity). |
| 4 | Time | A simultaneous fanout with one observer slice riding it; the slice's count of ordered differences is the clock. |
| 6 | Adjacency before space | A scrambled lattice reconstructs 2-D space from connectivity alone (press Scramble); colour = pure graph distance. |
| 7 | Symmetry → shape | A symmetric ring rotates within that space — mapping onto itself, adds 0 bits, space unchanged. |
| 8·9 | Radius, closure & π | One growing loop: symmetry type fixed, extent (radius) grows, and n·sin(π/n) converges to π. |
| 4·10 | Projection / wavefunction | A static sphere, viewed edge-on, slices to a point→line→point segment that fakes "time" (Flatland). |
| 12 | Entanglement | Hidden adjacency drawn as a higher-dimensional bridge: short 1-hop throat however far you drag the mouths apart. |
| 15 | Light | Two observers; along a symmetry direction (indistinguishable states) the clock never ticks → no proper time. |
| 16 | Mass | Path density: amplitude injected at A must fan through a dense subnetwork X to reach C, and dwells there. |
| 17·18 | Gravity | The fanout's stationary occupancy is ∝ degree; the readout shows measured occupancy converging to the mass's share of paths. No force. |
| 19 | Black hole | Throttle the leak on the core's outward edges → escape flux → 0; the fanout is trapped. A phase transition, not infinite density. |
| 21 | Big Bang | The earliest accessible boundary, not necessarily the beginning. |
| 22·23 | Unified picture | Synthesis → enter the Sandbox. |
Every number in the Emergent Readout (top right) is computed live from the graph and the fanout: distinction, information (bits), informational distance, independent loops, the closure invariant, the observer clock, occupancy vs. degree-share, escape flux, and more.
Most chapters carry a toggle (top of the narrative panel, or press C) that switches the canvas between the information-first view and the textbook GR / QM / Newtonian picture, drawn with traditional, non-graph visualizations so you can contrast them directly:
| Chapter | Classical view |
|---|---|
| Time | Newtonian absolute timeline + uniform clock |
| Adjacency before space | Fixed Cartesian coordinate grid |
| Symmetry / π | A continuous Euclidean circle (C = 2πr, π given) |
| Wavefunction | A Schrödinger wave packet evolving + collapsing |
| Entanglement | A Bell pair separating in real space ("spooky action") |
| Light | A Minkowski light cone, ds²=0 ⇒ dτ=0 |
| Mass | A solid body with E = mc² |
| Gravity | The GR rubber-sheet well with an orbiting body |
| Black hole | A Schwarzschild funnel + horizon at r_s = 2GM/c² |
| Big Bang | An expanding ΛCDM universe from a singularity |
The engine is built on an explicit set of information-first axioms — see
PRINCIPLES.md. The short version: nothing may appeal to
pre-existing space, force, or time. The one fundamental process is a
simultaneous fanout on the graph (amplitude shared among every adjacency at
once — the static wavefunction). A single linear trajectory is not
fundamental; it is only an observer's projected slice of that fanout. From this
one operator, mass & gravity fall out as occupancy ∝ degree (path
multiplicity, no force), black holes as a trapping phase transition, and an
observer's time as the count of ordered differences along its slice.
The project deliberately mirrors the monograph's central inversion
(Information → Relationships → Geometry → Spacetime → Matter):
js/graph.js— the territory. Distinguishable states (nodes) and adjacency relations (edges). All "fundamental" quantities live here: informational distance (Dijkstra on1/weight), independent loop count (E − V + components), and density (the mass proxy). Spatial coordinates are treated as emergent, not given.js/graph.js → ForceLayout— adjacency projected into space. Node positions are continuously re-derived from connectivity by spring + repulsion forces, literally implementing "adjacency before space."js/field.js → FanoutField— the one fundamental process. The simultaneous fanout operator on the graph; its stationary distribution ∝ degree gives mass/gravity, and a throttled core gives black holes.js/render.js— the projection layer / the shadows. Glowing nodes (mass = pooled amplitude), fanout flux pulses, observer slices, the entanglement bridge, the Flatland slice + filmstrip, the closure→π overlay, the horizon.js/stages.js— the monograph, made executable. Each chapter rebuilds the structure one step richer than the last.js/main.js— controller: narrative, live metric HUD, interactions, sandbox.
The engine and every stage builder are covered by headless checks (graph metrics, the π-closure convergence, force-layout stability, and clean construction of all stages); the full page was rendered and exercised with a headless browser with zero console errors.
This is a speculative-physics art/visualization piece, not a peer-reviewed physical theory. It is meant to make the ideas in the framework tangible, explorable, and beautiful.